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The Nigerian army said it killed Boko Haram commander Abu Khalid and 10 militants during a night raid in Borno state, with the operation taking place Saturday night in the Kodunga area, the army’s spokesman said in a statement reported by the Associated Press on Sunday.
In the statement, army spokesman Sani Uba said Abu Khalid was a commander of Boko Haram in the Sambisa Forest and that he was a key figure within what the army described as “the terrorist hierarchy,” coordinating operations and logistics in the Sambisa axis.
Uba said soldiers attacked the militants on Saturday night and recovered weapons, food items and medical supplies from the militants, as the raid targeted Boko Haram fighters operating in the northeast.
The announcement came after Boko Haram militants killed dozens of people in two separate attacks in Borno earlier in the week, including an attack on a construction site and an attack on a military base, according to the report.
Boko Haram, described in the report as Nigeria’s homegrown jihadis, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose a radical version of Islamic law.
The insurgency has also included an offshoot known as the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP, which the report said has expanded into Nigeria’s northern neighbors, including Niger, killing about 35,000 civilians and displacing more than 2 million people, according to the United Nations.
Taiwo Adebayo, a researcher specializing in Boko Haram at the Institute for Security Studies, said the Nigerian military began an offensive last month that involved moving proactively into hideouts to engage insurgents, describing it as “a departure from the usual reactive posture that saw the military suffer dozens of raids on their camps last year.”
Adebayo also said the United States had conducted intelligence-gathering flights over Borno since last November, helping the Nigerian military carry out raids on armed groups.
Nigeria is facing a complex security crisis, with Boko Haram’s insurgency in the northeast alongside a surge in kidnappings for ransom by gunmen across the northwest and north-central regions over recent months, the report said.